


Losing

by Newhieghts



Series: Character Introspection [3]
Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, More of this shit, Multi, Now with akane’s contemplation, There’s nothing to tag not even a metaphor, and aoi’s Thinking again, ish, its just Aoi thinking vaguely abt 999 and akane, its the drive back from Building Q immediately after 999
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-07-12 04:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19940014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newhieghts/pseuds/Newhieghts
Summary: They achieved their goal. Akane is alive. They’re hurtling through the Nevada Desert and it’s all okay because they have what the want.Right?





	1. Aoi’s Drive

His knuckles are white against the steering wheel.

That‘s about all Aoi can recognise. Everything else in the car seems foreign. The gear box, the decals hanging from the mirror, the dusty windows are all strange to him.

Including, if not especially, Akane. 

Because she’s not dead anymore. Not even technically. 

She’s alive. 

Aoi’s been nothing but faithful to Akane’s inane plan for the last nine years of his life. He’s dutifully carried out every order, every to do on a never-ending list. 

He doesn’t quite know when he became a supporting character in his own life. 

He doesn’t quite know when he let it happen. Because he must’ve, he reasons. There must’ve been a moment, a turning point where he let Akane engulf his world completely and utterly. 

The grip on the steering wheel is beginning to hurt. He holds it tighter, just to remind himself this is all painfully real. 

In truth, he doesn’t need to hold the steering wheel. The road ahead is limitless and the dunes of sand the same. 

But he does because it gives him something to do. 

It gives him something to concentrate on. 

Something that isn’t Akane. 

Not Akane, not Gentarou/Ace or any of his cronies, not Junpei, not Seven, not Lotus and her children, not Clover and never ever Snake- Light. 

That was his only personal rule that he had stayed true to and not let his loyalty to Akane override. 

Don’t think about Light. 

It had stemmed, originally, from his rule of never thinking of the first nonary game and ergo any of its participants. 

Akane had made that impossible. Every detail of the first nonary game, of that damned ship, had to be scrutinised and analysed and copied to utter perfection. A misstep was not optional. 

Shoving the whole ordeal to the back of his mind, repressing the worst nine hours of his life, forgetting the faces of Light and Nona and those among them became impossible.

Drive, he tells himself. Drive, drive, drive. Don’t think, don’t feel, don’t dwell. 

He grits his teeth and curses himself when Light’s face, pale and lifeless in the coffin, flashes before him. 

For an honest moment, Aoi is certain he’ll throw up. The sick feeling in his stomach is not quelled by the thoughts that refuse to cease. 

Light in the coffin. The crazed gleam in Clover’s eye as she held the axe aloft. The barrel of the gun digging into Lotus’ temple. Akane’s fever flaring up. Ace. Ace, slaughtering them all.

They didn’t happen, not all of them. Not in this timeline, at least. But they did happen. He knows they did. 

Because somewhere, deep inside of him, he remembers losing. He can feel the grief of losing Akane for the second time. 

And somewhere more acutely, he feels the loss of Light for the second time. 

He doesn’t know why he cares so deeply. Maybe it’s guilt. Guilt for throwing him in another nonary game and subsequently trapping him in a coffin. 

Maybe it’s just human to care. Aoi reminds himself that he is, in fact, human. It doesn’t feel like it sometimes. 

What the fuck are they doing?

If Akane and Aoi are alive and human, and they are; they had never been more alive, then why are they driving? 

Why are they driving away from what they want? 

They had achieved their original goal, yes, yes, of course they had because Akane never ever failed. But that wasn’t all they wanted. 

He spares a glance to Akane in the passenger seat, curled up and nearly asleep. 

Aoi wonders why she’s so desperate to get away. Because Aoi knows she wants Junpei. It’s impossible to deny, though she may try. 

She wants Junpei, and Junpei wants her, so why are they running? 

And Junpei’s in the opposite direction however many miles Aoi’s done with his foot slammed on the accelerator. 

So is Light. 

Aoi hates to admit it, hates to feel vulnerable, hates to be human, but he likes Light. To the point where disappearing without a trace leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. 

This all feels wrong. 

And Akane’s never wrong, so why was this the last point on her list? This shouldn’t feel awful, bitter, wrong or any of the adjectives Aoi implements to his situation. 

He should feel liberated and free and so overwhelmingly happy that it’s over and Akane is alive. 

But he doesn’t. 

The grip on the steering wheel is really starting to hurt now. There’s going to be a mark, Aoi is sure. 

Sometimes it hurts more to hold on. 

So he should let go. 

And he does. He loosens his grip and blood returns to his aching palms and he shifts his foot from the accelerator to the brake and pushes it all the way down in a single motion. 

He almost concusses himself when he lurches forward and comes inches from cracking his head on the wheel.

Akane screams and he regrets his actions. He never wants to hear Akane scream again. 

“What are you doing?!”

Aoi rested his head against the wheel. “What are we doing, Kanny?”

“We’re leaving. Going home. Going.. away.” 

“Why?”

She looks scandalised out of the corner of his eye. Aoi wonders if he’s ever questioned her actions before. “Why? Jesus, Aoi, we’re leaving because we have to! Because nobody back there wants to see us, and nobody back there likes us! We put them in hell for nine hours and you think they’re going to forgive us?” Her voice wobbles. It’s a wobble only Aoi can detect. 

“I think Junpei would,” he murmurs. It’s easier to talk with his face down, rather than face Akane and watch her face fall. 

“Don’t talk about him.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Don’t talk about him,” she says again. 

Aoi doesn’t push the subject. 

That’s what he’d do if he was in his right mind. But he’s not because he’s killed a man today, technically, and because he can’t get Light’s lifeless face out of his mind.

So sue him. He pushes the subject. 

“Why? Why don’t you want to talk about him? You like him a whole fucking lot. So does he. You’re so incredibly smart, Akane, but fuck me, you’re stupid.”

“Because!” And that’s all she says for a full minute. Aoi counts. “Because... you’re right.”

“Call the presses,” he remarks. “I’m right about something.”

Akane ignores him. “Because you’re right and he does like me because it’d take a miracle for Junpei to stop believing in people.” She turns her head to the window. “In me,” she adds in a small voice. “And he deserves someone... better.”

Aoi lifts his head up. “Hey. Don’t say that. You’re a good person, Akane. You’re kind and thoughtful, alright? Don’t give me that ‘deserves better’ angsty bullshit.”

Even if he would say the exact same thing about him and Light. 

He mentally slaps himself. The non-existent relationship is incomparable to Akane and Junpei’s.

Akane’s eyes stay fixed on the window. “Then he deserves simplicity. He deserves someone who won’t lie to him and put him in a death game.”

“You lied to him so you would be alive, Akane.” 

She nods. Aoi sits back. He accepts his defeat. He loses this argument, but it’s a whole lot better than losing Akane. 

“Just. Start the car, Aoi. Let’s get out of here.” 

He can’t find the strength or the words to come up with an argument.

He figures it’s better to lose with dignity.


	2. Akane’s Ride

Akane can feel a migraine coming on. 

It starts small, hardly noticeable, just a aching throb in the side of her head, before it feels like her head is being split open. 

It’s a damn pain. 

But at least this pain is not accompanied by a fiery fever radiating off of her. 

That’s over. That’s settled. That’s done. 

She beat it. She won. She fought time, fought her destiny, fought her death and won. 

This isn’t the sight she thought she would have upon surviving her death. She had envisioned fields of flowers and a wind through lush green trees. 

Maybe that was the twelve year old in her that had not perished in flames. That was the sliver of innocence she had retained even after everything. Innocence had wanted a park with greenery. Reality, the cruelty and vengeance, had this;

Fields of dust, and a wind blowing sand at the windscreen. 

She had Aoi staring through the windscreen next to her. A silent Aoi, with a pensive look in his eyes. 

Akane has no idea what he’s thinking about. She’s normally pretty good at that, but she’s been preoccupied as of late. 

And he’s been preoccupied with her, sometimes so focused on designing this game that Akane wonders if it was him who came up with the idea. 

(It wasn’t. All of this is from the sprout of her mind) 

(She’s not sure if she should feel guilty)

He’s focused now, eyes front, foot down, mouth firmly shut. Aoi’s always been exceptional at blocking out the world around him. 

She doesn’t know how. She always assumed, that being a receiver, his head is always buzzing with information. 

(She doesn’t know) 

(She doesn’t know anything about Aoi anymore) 

For a fleeting moment she considers opening her mouth and tearing a word from the ocean of silence between them. 

She doesn’t though, because of all the unseen, silent words crammed in the space of the car, she can’t find one that isn’t meaningless. 

She presses her lips together and tries to focus on wishing the migraine away. 

She rests her head against the dirtied window for a second, before the ever increasing speed of the car means she hits her head against the glass repeatedly. 

It doesn’t help the migraine. It’s a damn pain. Everything’s a damn pain now, because the silence leaves her to ruminate in her decisions.

Decisions she doesn’t regret, but decisions that stink of guilt nonetheless. 

Fortunately, she doesn’t have the time to spiral into her morals because, unfortunately, Aoi slams on the brakes taking them from 89mph to nothing in a sudden instant. 

The seatbelt crushes her sternum as she lurches forward, nose to headboard. 

Her mouth opens to let out a scream as she slams back into the sagging cushion of the seat. 

Aoi is bent over the steering wheel, grimacing.

“What are you doing?!” She shrieks and regrets it for the headache drumming at her temples. 

“What are we doing, Akane?” He murmurs to the wheel which does not respond. 

It is not the question Akane had expected. 

(She didn’t know what she expected him to say. She didn’t expect him to stop for no reason, either.)

She stalls for an answer because she doesn’t know if it’s the truth. 

“We’re leaving... going home. Going... away.” 

She hopes it’s a believable answer, because it might be a lie. 

She hadn’t planned past the end of the nonary game. 

(That’s a lie. She had. But-)

She hadn’t planned the intricacies. Inside Building Q, Aoi was Santa, and Akane was June, and they had a personality to play. They had a script to follow. It was too easy to act clueless. It was harder to be themselves. 

“Why?” His voice cuts into Akane like a knife. 

There’s been too many timelines with physical knives. She doesn’t need the sharp edge to his voice too. 

She doesn’t need Aoi to suddenly question her, suddenly mistrust and doubt her. 

It’s been nine years. Why now; at the final checkpoint?

Her question boils and bubbles inside her, headache thrumming louder and louder until it bursts its barriers and explodes into her voice. 

“Why? Jesus, Aoi, we’re leaving because we have to!”

She wishes it wasn’t the case.

“Because nobody back there wants to see us, and nobody back there likes us!”

She wishes it wasn’t the case. 

“We put them in hell for nine hours and you think they’re going to forgive us?” 

She wishes they would. 

They won’t, but Akane’s always been one for the impossible coming true. 

Aoi doesn’t look up when he speaks. Through gritted teeth he says “I think Junpei would.”

She swallows the lump in her throat. 

She watches as Aoi’s eyes flutter shut. 

Aoi’s always been one for making the truth sound impossible. 

God, because Junpei, always Junpei, was a Saint. He was patient and willing and so endlessly kind. He made Akane think that humans, flawed and imperfect, could be truly good underneath it all. 

She was not one of them, of that she was sure. 

“Don’t talk about him.”

“You know I’m right.” 

She does. Junpei would always forgive her. Stupid boy. 

(It was one of the reasons she loved him so much.) 

He’d forgive anyone if he thought they could change, and he near always thought someone could change. 

“Don’t talk about him,” she repeats, scared of how deep her feelings run. If Aoi gives her even the slightest of an excuse she’s sure her mind will reminisce on every clear memory she has of Junpei. 

(There’s a lot.)

(She’s scared of remembering them, and even more terrified of forgetting them).

Aoi is scowling his signature scowl; something that was not so much the character ‘Santa’, but his true self. 

“Why?” Akane wonders where the tipping point is there trigger this line of interrogation. “Why don’t you want to talk about him? You like him a whole fucking lot. So does he. You’re so incredibly smart, Akane, but fuck me, you’re stupid.” Aoi’s voice is brash and bold and everything she knows about him. His words, not so much. 

Those are questions that, for once, she has no idea how to answer. 

She doesn’t know how to begin. 

She tries though. “Because...”

Because why? She’s talking about the man who just saved her life, albeit nine years in the past. This is boy she spent a good part of her childhood with. This is the man she kidnapped and forced to watch people die and die himself for her own gain. 

This is a man who should never want to see her again. Let alone forgive her. 

She swallows. It feels like glass, stabbing her windpipe. 

“Because you’re right,” she admits. 

“Call the presses. I’m right about something.” She lets that snipe at her slide past. She figures he deserves that much.

“Because,” She emphasises. “You’re right and he does like me because it’d take a miracle for Junpei to stop believing in people.” She feels the judgement radiating from Aoi, so she turns her head to the window. The sand does not judge her. It takes her sins in embrace and lets the wind bury them. “In me,” she adds, almost as an afterthought. “And he deserves someone... better.”

Someone who does not use him to save their life and then immediately run away. 

Literally anybody who is not her. 

She hears the sticky prising away of Aoi removing his head from the steering wheel. She refuses to look, nervous at what black look may greet her. 

“Hey.” The knifes edge is all but vanished from his voice. Instead, the Aoi of her childhood is speaking. Soft and patient. Calm and firm. “Don’t say that. You’re a good person, Akane. You’re kind and thoughtful, alright? Don’t give me that ‘deserves better’ angsty bullshit.” She can almost feel his hand on her shoulder, a comfort long lost to time. 

She almost allows it to happen.

Before she pushes back, because she’s always pushed Aoi to the limit. Always tested him too far. 

“Then he deserves simplicity. He deserves someone who won’t lie to him and put him in a death game.”

“You lied to him to save your life,” he counters, voice still there but a touch of frustration. 

All she offers is a stiff nod. 

He slumps back and sighs, hands back on the wheel and silence flooding their space once again. 

Before the silence suffocated them, she issues out one final order, before the nine years comes to a close. 

“Just. Start the car, Aoi. Let’s get out of here.” 

He puts his foot down, and the engine hums to life. Her migraine makes the same noise. 

When she was younger, much younger, she would consider this argument a victory. 

A win. 

She’s not so sure any more.

**Author's Note:**

> i Aoi and Akane bolting from building q would be them screaming with happiness and cheering. Did I write that? Absolutely not


End file.
